


Useful

by badluckvixen13 (alteringviews)



Series: The Brightest Witch Of Her Age [7]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Black Hermione Granger, Break Up, Cheating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-24 15:31:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10744545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alteringviews/pseuds/badluckvixen13
Summary: Useful...He'd called her useful, but apparently she wasn't worthy of respect no matter how useful she was.She didn't agree with that in the slightest.





	Useful

_ Useful. _

The word had shattered into a million razor sharp pieces falling through the core of her, shredding her insides as she sat staring at him. Feeling every slice of the edge of the vowels, every drop of blood from the end of consonants. She’d been useful but not worth of respect it seemed.

_ Useful. _

He’d called her  _ useful  _ and the two syllables had cut open her insides, but rather than tears or even blood--rage had come sloshing out around  her chest cavity and up, out, burning her tongue and sharpening her teeth as it did. Rage she hadn’t even known that she’d had buried beneath all the pain and suffering that she’d never acknowledged before. 

_ Mental,  _ he’d said. 

_ It had always been her thing... _ he’d said defensively as she’d stalked him out of the kitchen. 

Harry was the famous one. Ron was the best friend. And she was the useful one. She can’t remember what she’d said about that, but she remembered that he started yelling first accusing her of being difficult, of being too hard on him, unfeeling. That it was all her fault. 

“What’s my fault?”

“All of this! What are we even arguing about?”

“You called me  _ useful, _ Ron. Cups are useful, brooms, wands,  _ spoons _ not people!”

“I bet you don’t talk to Viktor like this in your little love letters.”

She told him that he was a selfish childish little prat with no regard for how anyone felt when it wasn't convenient for him.

“What does Viktor have to do with--”

“You’re cheating on me!”

“What?” She asked. “That’s what you think of me?”

“How can I think anything else?” Ron sneered. “Where do you go for days at a time? You’re never here when I come! You’re with him aren’t you?”

“Excuse me for doing things outside of this flat! For your information, I go to my grandmother’s flat because it’s  _ calming. _ ”

He snorted, “I’ve never heard of this grandmother.”

“And you never asked,” she bit out. “She’s  _ dead _ .”

Ron stammered at the narrowing of her eyes, “Yeah, well that still doesn’t explain why you’re so  _ frigid _ and confrontational all the time. Did you and Viktor use to fight like this? I bet you opened your legs for him.”

Hermione stepped back beneath the blank affect and regarded him, speaking from somewhere cold and unfeeling because his words had no grounding, they were frantic and angry. She heard herself laugh at his accusation.

Viktor had been shy about a lot of things, but it had done little to assuage his passions once he realized that she was not in the least pushing him away. He hadn’t gone farther than kissing, ever, but even his kisses had spoken of a mature desire that made her head spin. Ron had freaked out at the notion of kissing her more than that hurried, half afraid I'm going to die kiss they'd shared in the Chamber of Secrets.

“Viktor didn’t ever raise his voice at me. More importantly, he was never  _ afraid _ to touch me like you are and we never went farther than kissing anyway. Is there anything else you’d like to know about Viktor and I’s relationship since it’s clearly such a problem for you.”

He stammered, “How can I even believe you?”

Hermione whipped her wand around summoning the box she kept all of Viktor’s letters in and let it fit into his hands. 

“Feel free to read,” Hermione said calmly. “My conscious is clear. Can you say the same?”

He swallowed, “Th-that’s beside the point.”

Her eyes narrowed and he threw the box aside, the letters remained unperturbed.

“And what is the point, Ronald?” She asked flatly.

“That you’re still in love with him!” Ron said frustrated and flushing. “That he makes you so damn happy. If he makes you happy, then why don’t you go back to him then? Because I’m just a damn nobody right? Fame-chaser?”

“I don’t need your permission to do anything,” she said. “Let alone your approval. You have never  _ tried _ to make this work. You just assumed that since we survived the war, after years of near-death experiences, it would all just fall into place.”

He opened his mouth. 

“And furthermore, you have  _ never _ seen beyond your own insecurities unless it suits you. Don’t blame that on me--you know  _ nothing _ about me, Ron.”

“How can I when you don’t tell me anything?”

“You don’t ask!” Hermione said incredulously. 

“Right, because Viktor does.”

“He does,”  she said and watched him scoff. 

“He’s just trying to get into your knickers--to bag you.”

“You are so arrogant,” Hermione said with a shake of her head. “Perhaps if you stopped comparing yourself to him--”

“You do it!”

“I’ll wait,” she said. “When have I ever compared you?”

“You…”she regarded him, waiting for an answer. “You never appreciate anything I do for you.”

“Like what?” Hermione asked. “Blow me off at the last minute? Quote Quidditch statistics ad nauseam? Demand my time and knowledge, my attention for your own? What have you done for me, Ron?”

“Just because I can’t buy you things like--”

“Have I  _ ever _ asked you to buy me  _ anything _ ?” Hermione asked. 

He shut his mouth glaring at her, “You apparently need the last word, go ahead and have it.”

She scoffed.

“Bloody know-it-all,” Ron grumbled. “Just because you’re not a Sabertooth anymore, you think you’re better than me--Miss Merlin Order of the First Class. Brightest Witch of Our Age--Hah! Too smart not to realize that Viktor was using you...”

She could see it in his eyes… the argument at the Yule Ball…How angry she’d been, how hurt-- But not this time, because she hadn’t forgotten… how utterly amazing it had been… to be with a man, not a boy, to be with someone who’d been utterly happy with exactly who she was and had loved it.  She remembered what it was like to go to bed not silencing her own weeping so she couldn’t hear it, so no one could hear it. To dream and be dreamt of…

She remembered that. 

She hadn’t been  _ useful _ to Viktor, could never be, just as he had never been useful to her. She’d been exciting and enchanting and someone amazing beyond her  _ utility  _ even when he could barely pronounce her name. He'd been charming, not at all the man most thought of him…

He'd been a gentleman seeking someone who could see that and not the roaring of the crowd screaming his name and giggling girls following him around.

_ Well what good are you then? _

“But I guess you couldn’t figure out that I’ve been sleeping with your co-worker because you were too busy chatting it up with Viktor to notice.” Then he’d mumbled, muttered and seemed shocked… He thought she hadn’t heard it, but she had. 

“Co-workers,” Hermione corrected. “Acquaintances…Fans...Enemies.”

Ron turned pale.

“The first time… I was hurt, thinking perhaps it was my fault,” Hermione said. “That you just couldn’t deal with my trauma, that maybe I had pushed you away… But after the fifth… the sixth… I knew it wasn’t about me or us. It wasn’t about my trauma or anything else. It was always about you and it’s always been about you.”

“Y-You knew?” Ron asked her incredulously. 

“I knew,” Hermione told him regarding him calmly, “You should really have better choices in women… She’s just insulting and you aren’t exactly the best liar now are you? How many times can you use the same excuse after all? When Harry gives me your training schedule all the time? Have you any idea how much I’ve done to cover for you?”

His jaw dropped, “Then why didn’t you say anything? You knew why! If you were just a  little more  _ open _ I wouldn’t have had to. And I don’t need you to cover for me!”

“No, but Harry did,” she said.

He growled, “It’s always about Harry isn’t it?! If he’s so much more important to me then why don’t you date him instead?! Oh wait, because he’s dating  _ my  _ sister! How does it feel then to just be second best?”

Hermione shook her head, letting out a tired sigh. Harry and Ginny weren’t in love. They were just playing the part for Molly’s sake, both were quite comfortable in their arrangement for now, but she gave them all of a few more months to announce the fact that they were splitting. But aside from that, Ron, as usual, missed the complete point of the conversation. 

_ Give it up ladies and gentlemen, Ronald Weasley… always taking the easy way out. _ Always blind to the whole point of the argument, seeking to win but not having an objective. He wanted to make her cry, she was going to break his mind and hope that one day he’d grow up. She was tired of covering for him, tired of getting the short end of the stick, tired of bleeding for the wizarding world, for someone else that, for something else that wouldn’t bleed for her. 

So she found herself being incredibly immature and lifting her hands, palms towards her face two fingers up on each hand so he could see them clearly.

“Hermi--”

She dropped one finger on each hand leaving just the middle fingers up, crossed her hands and gave him a flat look just before he vanished from her sight vanished or forcefully apparated away from her. She wasn't sure and she didn't care. 

_ Safer _ , her father had told her. She wondered that if he knew that Ron was spineless would he have said the same thing? 

Spineless and entitled to the last minute.

She sat down then, waving a hand to return her box of letters to the table. Her hand gripped tight at the cold feeling that followed the sharp slices of pain.  _ Useful _ , had she always just been useful to him? A useful girl with bushy hair, always there to fix it? Always there with the answer? Always willing to help him and Harry on their next crazy adventure. Always there with the plan when they’d had none?

Had she always been--

“ _ Useful? _ ” She repeated, her eyes hard as she stood still in the middle of her flat. At a loss for words. An owl flew in through her window, dropping her a letter, large wings and a steady stare. She recognized it instantly, Ivan, the owl of one Viktor Krum. She turned to look at the letter on her table, breathing slowly and finding that the cold had not quite yet subsided, nor had it ever truly gone away. 

She wondered why… Why on Earth did the sight of Viktor’s letter seem to give her a sense of peace, maybe a little absolution? But what did she have to be forgiven for? What crime had she committed? Or maybe… had being with Ron been some sort of self-punishment?

For what? What had she done? 

She’d graduated from Hogwarts-- officially the brightest witch of her age. She’d done it all by overwhelmingly exceeding expectations… she'd done it…

Yet she hadn't seemed to change at all...Chasing Ron’s affection… his approval when…

She’d never needed it. Hell, she'd never wanted it! Had it always been about Harry in the end? Someone else’s plans for her?

She gasped, covering her mouth, stunned a bit. 

_ Approval, acceptance... _ all those nights sobbing, wishing for it, reaching for it the only way she knew how and getting it in Viktor, finding it in the shadows of the wizarding world… chasing it with Ron and it was always out of her reach because she had never…

All those people whispering about them, her father, Molly, the twins… all of them cajoling her without her realizing that all of their approval and all of their acceptance would mean nothing… just like her professor’s approval had meant nothing in the end...

She’d never approved of herself…Never accepted it no matter how much she told herself that she had. Ron had been just that, forcing the truth of that time in her face, dissolving the illusion that had been there.

The reason that her time with Viktor had felt like a dream was because it had never been a question if what she had to do to be accepted. She'd always felt comfortable in her skin with him...because they'd been open-- because they’d been “other” together where with Hogwarts she had only ever been “other” alone.

She reached for her hair, tamed into long waves with a stronger version of Sleekeazy’s potion. The usually thick and tight curls that amassed around her head were looser now with age, weight and magic. Her teeth shrunken with magic... even the shimmer of the shirt she wore--magic and alluring. By the Merlin’s wand, how had she not seen it?

She shuddered, this was the danger of the wizarding world, of mystic smoke and mirrors, of the twinkle in Dumbledore’s eyes as he watched her get stronger through the years… of the light of the full moon in that clearing not so long ago. So much illusion to cover the truth-- love potions, polyjuice, occlumency...

She blinked and turned her head looking at the letter before opening it and feeling herself relax as she stroked the feathers of Ivan, Viktor’s owl who had been incredibly affectionate with her despite Viktor’s warning that he was a tad mean spirited. He hooted at her, careful to nuzzle her and nip at her hand affectionately before flying across the flat to the perch she’d set up for him. 

As she pulled at the black wax seal, his personal crest pressed there, she smiled. The pages smelled of the crisp sea near his home, of the deep and heady forests, of his hands that always smelled like…

Like fresh cut wood and broom polish. 

It's the lull of Viktor’s accent reading this letter in her head that does it truly.  It feels like his cloak over her shoulders, her hand in his,  warm and comforting. Like his arms around her, holding her in his lap as the melancholy was too much to get her out of the afflicted tower, too much to deal with and hide at the same time. 

She felt her lips twitch at the memory. It had been… so cold… So very, very cold, she knew, but she hadn’t felt it. Her hair its usual bushy cloud around her head, as she’d had no thought to try and tame it. A circle of books around her that she’d been carrying around, they all lay open to the brisk wind. She had not even thought to charm the windows and missing parts of the tower  against it or the chill. 

She almost expected to freeze to death as she sat quiet, muted and unwilling to move from her spot. She’d run out of tears to cry within the first hour and just sat in silence, the occasional empty sob coming from her, but she could not even remember what had brought her up there in the first place. 

She remembered other times though, some of them blending together with that one. As if by being there just that once, he’d stepped into every other instance too. Once, it had been Ron and some of the other Gryffindor boys… Locker room talk out in the open, how they’d laughed, yet had given no thought to how it would hurt anyone who heard it. 

It had cut her like sectumsempra, right through the chest, but she’d collected her books, and left. Always so dignified, dignified enough to shoot one well placed quip to the group about their lack of romantic lives before leaving with a practiced slow, relaxed, proud walk that tricked her into marching through the school as if she were untouchable. Down the stairs, down a corridor, and up to the top part of this particular part of the castle, near abandoned because of its placement. She managed to sit down and open her books again, to lay them out as she had them before the first tear began to fall. She’d tried not to acknowledge it, the tingling in her throat, the burning in her eyes, down her cheeks, the cold and the despair that kept her from raising her wand to charm the area, to charm herself as she would have done usually.

She felt it now. 

How had he’d found her? She’d had no idea then and it was still a mystery to her, only that she’d been near mortified when he appeared in the doorway, standing in his robes from so far away and looking at her. 

She remembered wiping her face and forcing a smile, opening her mouth only to have him press a finger to her nearly blue lips. 

_ Shh, mila, _ he’d said.  _  Nyama nuzhda da luzhe. _

She hadn’t understood what he was saying, but the intent was clear when he pulled off his outer robe and put it around her, casting a sequence of blocking and warming charms around before cushioning the floor to sit with her in her circle of books. She remembered how he’d pulled her into his lap, covering her in the cloak, his hat on her head and curled into the warmth of him as he shared his body heat. 

She remembered how that wasn’t the last time that he’d found her that way. The next time in the middle of the forest, casting spells at shadows, tears streaming and a whirlwind of magic that was far too advanced for her. 

She remembered how she’d found him after the Tournament in much the same state. Raging in the middle of the forest, all physicality and shame…

She remembered holding him and wondering if she was doing anything for him besides listening as he confessed. How someone had put him in the Imperio charm, how he’d fought and fought but had not been able to break free. How he wanted her gone because he couldn’t be trusted.

_ Even now…  _ he’d said pushing away from her, hands out and so frightened.  _ Even now… someone… anyone… that person could…mila please-- _

She remembered making him sit with her in his lap and listen to her even as he'd begged her to leave him, afraid that he would hurt her. She'd been so brave with him it felt, quieting him with gentle kisses, her brown hands cupping his olive face, gentle and wiping tears away.

Merlin, had she been so young that she hadn’t realized then? Even when they were leaving and he’d fought his way through the crowd to find her and plead with her to write to him, to visit him that summer. The visit had never been managed as she'd had training to complete over the summer with McGonagall, but they saw one another, wrote to one another...

After Bill and Fleur’s wedding, he'd gone back to help with the Death Eater problems in Bulgaria, defending the halls of Durmstrang with the rest of the students and alumni who came back to show their allegiance. They’d seen each other at the post-war celebration hosted at Hogwarts and even then there had been something, something before Ron had pulled her outside, before he’d left. At the World Cup, they'd talked briefly about life since the war. In the letters since the post-war celebration, they talked about their lives. She’d told him about Ron, about this odd thing they seemed to be embarking on--to be clear and not betray the trust they seemed to have. Even then, even when he’d respected her decision to try and figure things out with Ron, they’d talked. Letters nearly every day.  They... _ talked _ far more than she ever had with Ron, not yelling or nagging but talked like two sensible adults. She hadn’t told him everything, just as she knew that he hadn’t told her everything, but they respected one another, opening up little by little. She wondered if perhaps that was the problem: Ron hadn't reached sensible adult and he wondered if he ever would given how close knit his family was, how many complexes he had about his older siblings. About her and Harry…

She hadn't seen then what it was that kept him so very angry all the time, especially with her. She could feel bad for him… but what about her? Had he expected her to nag him all his life? To accept his staggering tower of flaws, insecurities, and mistakes and not ask for him to  _ try _ to be better? She couldn't remember the last time she'd felt anxious enough to nag him about anything… the last time she'd saw him as worthy of it. 

It was definitely before Amy felt the need to slyly try and rub it in her face that she was fucking Ron in a supply closet. A glance into her mind told Hermione all she’d needed to know about their encounters: it wasn’t about Amy. 

Ron had put his hands in her hair and turned Amy around, fucking her against the wall with desperate thrusts. His breath heaving as he’d whispered into the nape of Amy’s neck.  _ Hermione _ , he’d said though Amy didn’t ever realize.  She didn’t bother to glance into Ron’s mind to figure out what he was imagining when he gripped Amy’s hair hard and thrust almost ruthlessly. 

She hadn’t needed to after that row. He’d been thinking of how Viktor must have taken her. He apparently thought that Hermione had given everything to the man, leaving the thought of giving anything to Ron foolish. If not Viktor, then Harry, the niggling doubt of her and Harry’s closeness always there in his mind. Never mind that Harry had always been a better friend to Ron than to her and whatever feelings may have held for her would not have made him betray Ron that way. It just wasn’t in Harry’s nature. 

In any case, it had always been Ron comparing himself to people when it came to her. Seeing her more as an object that he should have been able to have whether because he thought no one else wanted her or no one else  _ could _ want her. As if she could compare any of them, they were different people with very different understandings of her. 

When she was finished reading, she realized that perhaps she had been unfair to herself. More so than she'd ever acknowledged and perhaps it was time to acknowledge that.

So she summoned fresh parchment and ink from her work room and began to write. Sometimes, it was hard to reply. There was something so very personal about their letters, so very personal about handwriting in general, but tonight there were no barriers. She didn’t take care to try and keep her scent from soaking into the pages, but imagined him delighting in the smell of her perfume lingering on the pages, the thought of touching where her hands had touched, the craftsmanship of the letters. The last of those worries gone with her banishing Ron from her flat. When her alarm rang hours later, she realized that she had indeed been writing all night. She sighed, made herself coffee and turned to the perch she'd set up for Ivan, leaving him meat to eat and darkness to sleep in while she prepared for work.

It's quick despite her lack of sleep, an odd sort of clarity washing over her. When she was dressed for work, she grabbed her thermos and walked outside her flat to the nearest Ministry of Magic entryway. She didn't see Ron at all that day until he was standing outside her flat shuffling his feet and looking...not quite ashamed but at the very least calmer. She didn’t feel anything about him there, a calm coldness taking over her.

He’d been a plan… but had never truly been her plan and she was… quite tired of following other people’s plans. They seemed to be doing her no good at all. 

“I… “ he started and as usual it would be a wait to let him figure it out. 

His eyes flickered at her beseeching, waiting perhaps for her to save him from getting the words out… the way she usually did. Her impatience and gracious nature had always been her downfall. Her need to be on to the next thing to always, didn’t like to see people suffer, she always wanted…

To be useful.

To take the lead.

To save people from their own introspection and never being granted that same courtesy… never given a break. No one seemed to really care about her suffering, not enough to try and stop it at least. No one… except maybe Viktor who’d been more merciful and understanding than she truly deserved.

She shut her mouth gripped her hand and waited as he stumbled and started.

“Look Hermione, we both said things we didn't mean. Can we let it go?”

“There is nothing that I have ever said to you that I didn't mean Ronald.”

His brow furrowed, “What's that supposed to mean?”

“I meant every word.” Hermione said. “ And I know you did too.”

He winced and looked down. Somehow, it doesn’t sting the way it should… Maybe nothing would ever sting again. Or perhaps it didn’t sting because she’d always known this would fall apart. Someone’s plans followed or not, she wasn’t one to continue down a useless path. 

That just wasn’t logical.

“For once in your life Ronald, pluck up.”

He flushed, “This is what I'm talking about.”

Hermione nodded, “Yeah? Me too.”

She walked towards her door and he turned.

“Hermione you can't --”

“I can do whatever I please,” Hermione said. “I think after years of not doing so, I’ve earned that right.”

“You can’t just throw it all away--”

“I didn’t,” she said. “You did.”

“What about Mom and Harry?”

“You tell them what you need to to sleep at night,” Hermione said. “I have other things that keep me up, you certainly won’t be one of them.”

“What's that mean?”

She unlocked the door and turned to him, “You want to know why you’ve never stayed the night?”

Ron blinked swallowing thickly. 

“Why I  _ can’t _ always be in this flat? Why I have another one that no one knows about? My own Grimmauld Place? It’s because I have nightmares, Ron. Horrible, wake up screaming, thrashing, casting spells at shadows nightmares. Anxiety, pain, guilt and regret by the buckets-- that is what keeps me up at night. Drawing my wand on you when you woke me up from dozing isn’t even the tip of what could happen if you were around.”

“We all have nightmares--”

“Not ones that leave you casting Killing Curses in your sleep,” she said. “Did you know that I’ve started to sleep with my wand locked away in an enchanted cupboard for that very reason?”

Ron swallowed staring at her, not sure what to say to the woman that was standing in front of her. He can’t even recognize her. This isn’t the Hermione he knew, not the one he went to dinner with… not the one who came to his games with a book pressed to her chest. 

“I carry books around because they ground me,” Hermione said. “So long as something is in my hand I can’t reach for my wand if I doze off. That’s why I carry them to the games Ron. Because I don’t sleep and with that comes a distinct inability to separate nightmare from reality.”

“You… really are mental,” Ron heard himself say, stepping back. “You’re off your rocker. No--”

“Yes,” she agreed. “And it’s time that I stop pretending like I’m not. It’s time I stop bleeding for everyone else and start tending my own wounds.”

“What?”

“I owe it to myself,” she said simply. “And if I am to be a friend to anyone ever again, I owe it to them too. I don't know if we can ever get to the point where we can be friends, truly friends, but I wish you well either way.”

With that she walked into her flat and closed the door behind her, returning to the table where she'd left her half penned letter and finished it, sealed it and made sure to give Ivan a treat before having him fly back to wherever Viktor was at the moment.

She ignored Ron knocking on her door, ignored the letters that came from him, and was at most polite to him when they crossed paths in the ministry’s corridors. 

If she were smarter... 

If she were smarter, she would have realized all of this ages ago, not even got involved with Ron in any romantic capacity. Beneath it all, she'd only ever been the bushy haired, buck teethed Hermione still anxious in her knee high socks and skirts.  Somewhere beneath it all, she had to find the Griffyndor in her too. Perhaps with this done, she'd done it again.

Why Gryffindor? She always wondered. Brave how? She seemed to only ever have a plan, a logical course of action and followed it to the end… That wasn’t bravery--that was compulsion. 

Was raising her hand every time bravery or compulsion? Anxiety, insecurity--maybe just to fill the silence. All the research, the endless number of facts and bits of information crammed between her ears night after night… 

Was it always just to forget how much she wanted to cry?

The skills… the best with spells… The brains of the operation.

The computer that  functioned because it needed to--perhaps she just wasn’t human any longer, but really a walking, talking encyclopedia. 

She laughed a little dark and empty, yet it didn’t turn to tears. Just more laughter, almost manic as she jumped up from her seat and went to find her running shoes. They were her favorites and worked over with magic to keep them feeling as new as the day she bought them. 

She put on a sports bra and left her apartment, running the streets of London laughing into the rushing wind. 

Free and useless. 


End file.
